Cai Siew Ya, otherwise known as Cai Xiuya, was one of the early graduates of the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts. From the 1950s to the 1960s, Cai returned to NAFA as a tenured teacher alongside some of the institution's alums. In 1985, he joined the Society of Chinese Artists (SOCA). Like many Chinese artists in Malaya, Cai was inclined to create artworks in the Nanyang Style, a movement that promoted a fusion of Western European and Chinese artistic techniques in depicting Southeast Asian localized cultures.
Cai Siew Ya 蔡秀崖
